HOW TO FIND A BUCK AT HIS SCRAPE

What To Do For Successful Scrape Hunting

EDITOR'S NOTE: The information we don't know about scrape hunting can fill up volumes of textbooks. You can compare the amount of information we do understand about scrape hunting to a BB in a boxcar. Each year wildlife researchers gain more data about deer communication, behavior and signposting. However, the knowledge we learn as deer hunters often becomes twisted, leaving us misinformed. Much of what we know about scrape hunting comes from legends and traditions rather than scientific facts. Let's look at the latest research with Dr. Keith Causey, professor of wildlife science at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama about scrapes and scrape hunting and take advantage of it to harvest more bucks at these naturally occurring whitetail bulletin boards. Causey brings an advantage to the table in his discussion of deer behavior -- his own hunting experience. As a deer hunter, he can draw conclusions he cannot document with scientific fact and research. However, because of his experience in the woods during hunting season, I consider his assumptions very valuable to the rest of us who hunt whitetails.

The information we don't know about scrape hunting can fill up volumes of textbooks. You can compare the amount of information we do understand about scrape hunting to a BB in a boxcar. Each year wildlife researchers gain more data about deer communication, behavior and signposting. However, the knowledge we learn as deer hunters often becomes twisted, leaving us misinformed. Much of what we know about scrape hunting comes from legends and traditions rather than scientific facts. Let's look at the latest research with Dr. Keith Causey, professor of wildlife science at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama about scrapes and scrape hunting and take advantage of it to harvest more bucks at these naturally occurring whitetail bulletin boards.

Causey mentions that your success or failure in taking a buck at a scrape often depends on the direction from which you approach the scrape. "If you move toward the scrape with the wind at your back, your human odor carries into that scraping area," Causey explains. "In this situation, you may spook the buck you want to take. Remember, to have success in scrape hunting, have the wind in your face when you go to the scrape. Then your human odor won't travel in the direction from which you expect the bucks to approach." Also, stay away from the scrape. In the past, hunters have been told that to determine a scrape's freshness they should walk up to it, pick up some of the dirt in the pawed-up area and smell it to see if they can determine a strong urine odor. If they can smell the urine, more than likely they've found a fresh scrape.

However, Causey emphasizes that when you approach a scrape and pick up the dirt in that scrape, you also leave a strong human odor that alerts the deer to your presence. "To employ a better tactic to investigate the scrape, use a quality pair of binoculars to look at the scrape from a distance. Wet areas in the pawed-up earth will tell you how recently the deer have used the scrape. Personally, I won't approach a scrape and leave human odor in the area where I plan to see deer. I don't believe in a hunter's marking a scrape with his scent to let every deer that passes by know a hunter has been there."

Since Causey hunts primarily with a bow, he has learned the most-critical keys to success include wind direction, control of human odor and not touching any branches of bushes or trees as he goes to his hunt site -- especially when he hunts a scrape where many deer will come from different directions. Because scientists have developed new technology to study deer behavior, they'll continue to learn more about scrapes and other deer behavior and how hunters can hunt more effectively. If you combine all the knowledge we have today about scrapes, we only know about 10 percent of what we can understand about why deer scrape, what functions scrapes have and what information scrapes communicate. We still have much to learn.